After the travesty for Logan that ended with the last ‘Wolverine‘ run I was happy to hear that Marvel was switching writers for the closure of their most iconic character. I was also worried though on how Charles Soule would write the last chapter in the life of James Howlett, Logan, Patch, Wolverine, or any of the other names that we’ve come to known him by over the years. Well Bub, I have to tell you. it was mostly a success in my eyes.
Now, the first thing I’m going to tell you is that if you trudged your way through the horrible chapter in his life that just ended you will be both happy and annoyed with this comic. On the one side you’ll be happy because it feels that the events that you just forced your way through reading are being mostly ignored. You’ll be annoyed because you just wasted the last year reading up to this point and everything that Logan has learned about himself and being a loner over the course of that time has been ignored.
The downside is that we see Wolverine once again having a loner story after having just learned how important his friends and family are. Reed Richards has said he can find a way to cure Wolverine he just needs time. The problem is, Logan decides that to do that he has to go out to the middle of nowhere. I’m sure he’s trying to just keep his friends out of the cross hairs, but conceptually it feels a bit too repetitive of what we’ve just said.
That being said the negative comparisons stop right there!
Where ‘Wolverine’ gave us a Logan who felt poorly written and illustrated, Soule gives us a solid story and Steve McNiven draws Wolverine how he is meant to look. There aren’t many fight scenes in this one but what we do get are fitting for Wolverine and the end results of fights that are hinted at are spot on! As a fan of the most overplayed mutant of all time this is how I wanted him to look for the past year that was supposed to be building up to his swan song.
While my negative comparison above left a sour taste in my mouth it was completely outshined by a mixture of high quality writing combined with stunning visuals. We’re not getting anything overly new in this issue but we all know that by the end of this miniseries that Wolverine will no longer be among the land of the living. We know the outcome so it is the journey that has to keep things interesting and at the very least the first chapter has caught my interest.
I went into ‘Death of Wolverine’ not sure of what to expect and closed the last page with a smile on my face. We’re going to get the brawler for one last go as he carves through some of his enemies for a final confrontation that he won’t be walking away from. I’m a little annoyed with the longer angle they are playing but even with that, I want to read more. Is it a perfect issue? No. But after the last year of ‘Wolverine’ it is refreshing to see the Logan we know and I think he’s going to go out in style.
DEATH OF WOLVERINE #1
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Steve McNiven
